Orchardton Tower, Dumfries and Galloway
N 54° 52.592 W 003° 50.711
30U E 445769 N 6081379
Orchardton Tower is free to visit with free parking. A well cared for ruin with neat cut grass. Prolifically sign posted off the A711 road. Superb views from top wall.
Waymark Code: WM45Q7
Location: Southern Scotland, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 07/11/2008
Views: 24
A unique round tower for Scotland with remains of an attached grange. The HS sign is inside with only a metal plaque fixed to the collecting 'box' column. An internal spiral staircase leads through to the top floor. Where there is a tiny gabled cap-house, which brings you out onto the wall walk. This would originally have given you access to the whole circumference of the tower. Only a small portion is now possible.
The walls are around 9 feet thick, especially at the base, although they look a little narrower the higher you go. The entrance is via a stone staircase, although it's unlikely that this is original. Entry, when the tower was being used, may have been up a set of wooden steps that would most likely would have been removable.
The tower was probably built sometime after 1546, when John Cairns retired to the area. In 1555, as the result of the end of the Cairns family line, the tower and the lands were transferred to the Crown, until it could be agreed who should inherit the estate. It wasn't until 1615 that the estates were finally released from Crown care, and into the hands of Sir Robert Maxwell, the 1st Baronet of Orchardton. The Maxwell association with the tower continued for 150 years, until the 7th Baronet of Orchardton moved to a newly built mansion nearby. The building of the new mansion unfortunately bankrupted the Baronet, and he sold the estates, including the tower to James Douglas from Liverpool in 1785.
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